Understanding local businesses starts with showing up, listening and recognising that every business has a different story to tell.
A lot of the work behind effective business engagement happens quietly.
It involves walking through the door, finding a suitable time to talk, returning when someone is less busy, and building enough trust for an open conversation. It means taking the time to understand the people behind the business, their experiences and the challenges they face in their local area.
This is the work currently underway across Mt Albert and Pt Chevalier, where WERKITS is leading business engagement to better understand the experiences, concerns and priorities of local businesses.
Recent reflections from Eric, one of the contractors contributing to this work, offer a valuable insight into what these conversations can mean, both for the businesses involved and for the people delivering the engagement.
Sometimes, being heard is what matters most
In his recent visits to businesses across Pt Chevalier, Eric was reminded of something fundamental about community and stakeholder engagement.
As he put it:
“Sometimes, people don't expect you to solve their problems. They simply want to know someone is listening.”
It is a simple observation, but an important one.
Business owners are busy running their businesses, serving customers, managing staff and making decisions that affect their livelihoods. Taking time out of the working day to speak with someone about their experiences is not always easy.
Yet, when someone takes the time to visit, listen without judgement and ask thoughtful questions, it can make a genuine difference.
Eric described business owners thanking him simply for coming to talk to them. Some shared that they had not felt heard for a long time.
These interactions reinforce why engagement needs to be about more than completing surveys, gathering responses or producing reports. It starts with building relationships and creating the conditions for people to speak openly about what is happening behind the shopfront.
Different businesses. Different cultures. Shared aspirations.
One of the strengths of local business engagement is the opportunity to hear directly from people with different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives.
Through his work across Dominion Road and communities throughout the wider local board area, including Mt Albert and Pt Chevalier, Eric has spoken face-to-face with well over a hundred business owners from a range of cultural backgrounds.
His experience has highlighted an interesting common thread: while the businesses and the challenges they face may differ, many of their underlying aspirations are remarkably similar.
As Eric reflected:
“Different cultures. Different businesses. Different stories. But often, very similar hopes.”
Those hopes include a safe community, a healthy local economy, fair opportunities to make a living and a place where people and their families can build a future.
For many business owners, New Zealand is no longer simply the country they came to. It is home.
Understanding this context matters. Local businesses do not operate in isolation from the communities around them. Their experiences are shaped by their customers, their neighbourhoods, the local economy and the wider environment in which they work and live.
Taking the time to understand these connections helps build a more complete picture of what is happening at a local level.
The value of different perspectives
At WERKITS, we recognise that the people delivering an engagement project are an important part of the process.
Our team brings together different cultural backgrounds, local connections and professional experiences. Each person contributes something valuable to the way we connect with businesses, build trust and understand their circumstances.
Eric's cross-cultural experience, in particular, brings depth to our current engagement work. His ability to connect with business owners from a broad range of backgrounds helps us hear perspectives that might otherwise be missed.
As project lead, my role is to bring these individual strengths together and look at what the conversations are telling us as a whole.
That means identifying where experiences overlap, understanding where they differ and considering what those insights mean for the organisations we support.
No single conversation tells the whole story. Equally, no two businesses should be assumed to have the same needs simply because they operate in the same area or industry.
By bringing together the experiences and observations of the wider team, we can develop a more nuanced understanding of local business conditions and the issues that matter most to the people affected by them.
Turning conversations into meaningful insights
Good engagement is not simply about collecting information. It is about understanding what that information means.
Every conversation provides another perspective on the local business environment. Some concerns may be shared by many businesses, while others may be specific to a particular location, industry or individual circumstance.
Both are important.
Our role is to listen carefully, identify emerging themes and help translate individual experiences into insights that organisations and decision-makers can better understand and use.
This requires care in how conversations are conducted, how information is interpreted and how different perspectives are brought together.
It also requires an understanding of the limits of the engagement process. We cannot promise that every concern raised will be resolved, but we can ensure that those concerns are heard, taken seriously and represented as part of a broader understanding of the community.
That distinction matters. Meaningful engagement creates a stronger foundation for informed decision-making, even when the answers are not immediate or straightforward.
Why a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work
At WERKITS, “one size doesn't fit all” has long been a guiding principle.
It shapes how we approach engagement, the methods we use and the people we bring into each project.
Every community has its own characteristics, and every business brings a different combination of experiences, challenges and aspirations. An approach that works well in one context may not be appropriate in another.
Effective engagement requires flexibility, cultural awareness and a willingness to adapt. It means recognising that trust is built differently with different people, and that understanding often takes time.
It also means assembling teams with the right mix of skills, perspectives and connections for the work at hand.
The Mt Albert and Pt Chevalier engagement is a practical example of this approach. By combining the strengths of our team and listening directly to local business owners, we can build a richer understanding of the communities we are working with.
Building stronger connections between businesses and decision-makers
The value of local business engagement extends beyond the conversations themselves.
When business owners have an opportunity to share their experiences, and those experiences are carefully understood and communicated, it helps create a stronger connection between local communities and the organisations that serve them.
Cross-cultural engagement plays an important role in this process. It helps bridge differences in background, experience and perspective, making space for a broader range of voices to contribute to the conversation.
For Eric, this is also an important part of his professional journey: helping bridge the space between diverse communities, local businesses and the organisations that serve them.
For WERKITS, it reflects a broader commitment to understanding people and places before drawing conclusions about what they need.
Ultimately, good engagement is built on trust, strengthened through listening and made valuable by what happens with the insights gathered.
Recognising the people behind the work
There is a great deal of care behind effective engagement, much of it happening away from public view.
It takes patience to keep showing up, skill to build relationships and judgement to understand what people are really communicating. It also takes a team willing to learn from one another and recognise the value of different perspectives.
Thank you to Eric, Caroline and everyone contributing to the Mt Albert and Pt Chevalier engagement, and to the business owners who have made time to share their experiences.
Their willingness to participate helps us build a better understanding of local business life and the issues that matter to the communities we work with.
Because meaningful engagement starts with a simple principle: before we can understand what a community needs, we need to take the time to listen.